How to fix vague and empty link text

By Matt Kerr·Published 10 October 2026

Link text should say where the link goes. “Click here” and “read more” say nothing about the page behind them, to a visitor skimming, to a screen reader reading out a list of links, or to Google. The fix is to rewrite each one as the name of its destination, and to give every link that holds only an icon a name of its own.

Why the words matter

Google's own guidance, which I read on 10 October 2026, puts it this way: good anchor text is descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant to both the page it sits on and the page it links to. It lists “click here” and “read more” as examples of text that is too generic. It also gives a test worth borrowing: read only the anchor text, out of context, and ask whether you could tell what the page is about. The page is Link best practices for Google.

People hit the same wall. Screen readers can read out every link on a page as a list, with the sentences around them removed. A list that says “read more, read more, click here” is no use to the person listening. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines ask that a link's purpose be clear from its text together with its surrounding sentence (the success criterion called Link Purpose, In Context), and descriptive text meets that without making anyone read around it.

What Docket reports

Two findings, from the same check.

Vague link text. A link is counted when its whole text is one of these phrases: click here, here, read more, more, learn more, this, link, this page, continue, details, info, more info, see more, go, download, view, read, click, find out more. Docket lowercases the text and trims spaces and the marks . ! → > » › - from the ends first, so “Read more »” counts. It counts every link on every indexable page it crawled, except addresses that start with #, javascript:, mailto: or tel:. It reports from the first one it finds.

Links with no text. A link with no words gets a name from, in order, its aria-label, the alt of an image inside it, or the title of an inline SVG inside it. One with none of those is counted as empty, and the finding appears when more than three are found. An image with alt="" is not a name: that is how a decorative image is hidden from assistive technology, so a link holding only that has nothing to announce.

The fix, pattern by pattern

A card that ends in “Read more”. The card already has a heading that names the destination. Make the heading the link and delete the extra one.

<h2>Servicing</h2>
<p>A full clean, oil and ribbon.</p>
<a href="/services.html">Read more</a>

<h2><a href="/services.html">Typewriter servicing</a></h2>
<p>A full clean, oil and ribbon.</p>

A sentence built around “click here”. Move the link onto the words that name the thing, and cut “click here” from the sentence.

<a href="/prices.pdf">Click here</a> for the price list.

Read the <a href="/prices.pdf">price list (PDF)</a>.

A link that holds only an icon. Give the link a name with aria-label, and mark the icon decorative so it is not announced twice.

<a href="/contact.html"><img src="/img/mail.svg"></a>

<a href="/contact.html" aria-label="Email the workshop"><img src="/img/mail.svg" alt=""></a>

A button-style link that says “Download”, “View” or “Continue”. Add the object: “Download the price list”, “View the order”, “Continue to payment”. Keep it short. Google warns against anchor text that runs on for a whole sentence as well.

A real before and after

I wrote a small fixture site for this page: five pages of a typewriter repair workshop. I audited it with Docket on 10 October 2026, rewrote the links, and audited it again. The pages are ours; nothing here is measured on anyone else's site.

Before, the home page had four cards ending in “Read more”, “Click here” and “Learn more”, and four icon links with no alt text. Docket reported this, in its own words:

4 links use non-descriptive anchor text
Anchor text tells search engines what the linked page is about. Most common here: "read more" (2x), "click here" (1x), "learn more" (1x)

4 links have no anchor text at all
Links wrapping only an icon or an image with no alt text carry no meaning for search engines or screen reader users.

The fixes it printed were: Replace with the destination's topic: "Read more" becomes "our drain cleaning service". and Add alt text to the wrapped image, or an aria-label on the link. The home page after I followed them:

<ul>
<li><h2><a href="/services.html">Typewriter servicing</a></h2><p>A full clean, oil and ribbon.</p></li>
<li><h2><a href="/prices.html">What repair costs</a></h2><p>Fixed per machine.</p></li>
<li><h2><a href="/about.html">About the workshop</a></h2><p>Who we are.</p></li>
<li><h2><a href="/contact.html">Contact the workshop</a></h2><p>Post one or bring one.</p></li>
</ul>
<p class="icons"><a href="/contact.html" aria-label="Email the workshop"><img src="/img/mail.svg" alt=""></a>
<a href="/services.html" aria-label="Typewriter servicing"><img src="/img/tools.svg" alt=""></a>
<a href="/prices.html" aria-label="What repair costs"><img src="/img/tag.svg" alt=""></a>
<a href="/about.html" aria-label="About the workshop"><img src="/img/home.svg" alt=""></a></p>

Docket reported neither finding on the second audit. Nothing about the layout changed: the cards look the same, and the icons are the same icons.

What Docket cannot tell you

• It checks the words, not whether they are true. A link called “Our prices” that goes to the contact page passes. Reading the text against the destination is yours to do.
• It counts a bare “Download” or “Continue” even when the button sits under a heading that names the file or the step. If the context is plain, you may reasonably judge that one overstated. The longer text still costs nothing.
• It matches the whole text. “Read more about servicing” is not on the list and is not counted, though it is longer than it needs to be.

When to leave it for later

A handful of vague links on a small site is a low-effort tidy and a low-impact one. The finding is ranked that way in the plan. If it names hundreds of links on a large site, they almost always come from one component, a card or a post teaser, so fix the template once. Alt text on images is the other half of the icon links, and a crawler's list of every link on your site, with its text, is one of the things worth comparing between the audit tools.

Common questions

Is 'click here' bad for SEO?

Google's link guidance lists it as generic anchor text and recommends text that is descriptive, concise and relevant to the page it links to.

What should I write instead of 'read more'?

The name of the destination, such as 'typewriter servicing'. If the card has a heading that names it, make the heading the link.

How do I name a link that only holds an icon?

Put an aria-label on the link and give the icon alt="" so it is not announced twice. A wrapped image with a real alt also works.

Which phrases does Docket count as vague?

The whole link text has to equal one of: click here, here, read more, more, learn more, this, link, this page, continue, details, info, more info, see more, go, download, view, read, click, find out more. Case and trailing marks such as arrows are ignored.